Apple Anti-Trust (was Apples actual response to the Flash issue)

[Jeff Massung]

On Tue, May 4, 2010 at 12:29 PM, Neal Campbell <nealk3nc at gmail.com> wrote:

>
> What happens if they refuse to give you the "QA" approval?
>

Nothing other than you fix a couple bugs and resubmit for approval. To be
clear, this is *not* like submitting your app to Apple for approval in the
AppStore. Apple's approval is about them making sure they like what they see
and they can (for all intense purposes) reject your app for any reason
what-so-ever. Submitting to Nintendo (or Sony or MSFT) is 100% a QA
approval. They aren't "playing" your game or checking it for inappropriate
content (ESRB does that and rates your game). All the QA approval process is
about is whether or not your game crashes and abides by certain guidelines.
For example (taken from Nintendo Wii lot check):

*Section 3.3: Prohibition of Sustained Continuous Non-Sequential Access
[Required]*

If there has been no user input for more than 5 minutes (or 10-15 minutes,
based on the screen burn-in reduction feature setting), continuous
non-sequential disc access should end within 1 hour. Once user input is
received, resume normal operations. Non-sequential access is defined as
seeking to access data spaced more than 200 MB apart on the disc.

Non-sequential access resumed within five seconds for a long period of time
can shorten the lifespan of the disc drive. To avoid unnecessary aging of
the disc drive while the user is not operating the application, do not
conduct this kind of non-sequential access for more than one continuous
hour.

For example, when a movie is playing for a long time, position the files
that will be accessed nearby and, if non-sequential access will be carried
out, limit the number of loops.

For information on the wait time set for the screen burn-in reduction
feature, see the Wii Video Interface Library (VI) manual and the Video
Interface Library section of the Revolution Function Reference Manual. If
you are going to reconfigure the wait time for the screen burn-in
reduction feature, see section 6.22 Changing Screen Burn-In Reduction Wait
Time [Recommended].


They are all like this. They are geared towards protecting the hardware from
malicious use (constantly writing to flash or pinging the head of the DVD),
and the user's TV, making sure the user has certain interface expectations
(ala HID), and that should something bad happen, your application handles it
gracefully. There is absolutely nothing about the QA submission process for
which you can be rejected permanently. You'll just be given a list of bugs
to fix and you fix them.



> What does the actual license agreement say (can you quote it)?
>

No, I cannot.


Jeff M.